One of the founders of NEED, Kelly Kinnunen, is working on a video documentary project in Kabul, Afghanistan. He is travelling with Dina Fesler of the nonprofit Children’s Culture Connection. Among other places, they have been visiting Charahee Qambar, an IDP camp where people are living in desperate conditions with very little aid. Dina emailed an update about what they are doing and we wanted to share it with you.

After all the excitement with the media on Friday (from CBS and CNN in Kabul to the front page of the Star Tribune in Minnesota), we got back to business on our filming project.

Saturday morning started with an hour and a half meeting with Mr. P.M. Akram, the chief director of the Afghanistan National Independent Commission for Peace and Reconciliation. I honestly don’t know how Najib manages to know every single person in Afghanistan. Established five years ago, this organization works to bring opposition parties into the peace-building process. So far it has convinced more than 8,000 Taliban and insurgents to disarm and work for peace, and have nearly 7,000 more ready to join. Part of the way they do this is by establishing relations with the tribal elders in all regions of Afghanistan. Unlike the US, Afghanistan is tribal, which means that ideas don’t always work when forced from the top down. These Peace and Reconciliation folks understand that each community needs to be brought into the fold individually. Mr. P.M. Akram said that they are in support of the US troop surge as long as Afghan forces are trained to take over. Like the former Taliban I met the other day, he said that the real problem is coming from Pakistan, and he hopes that foreigners will help them develop economically in order to strengthen their country. Some days I feel like Ann Curry.

What I liked best about Mr. Akram is that he is a former Minister of Education and believes that helping children understand peace-building is vital. I told him he was a guy after my own heart and that since Children’s Culture Connection has the same mission, he can count us in if there’s anything we can do to help out. He said he appreciated this and would give thought to some possibilities before we meet again. Stay tuned for this!

Next I attended a meeting with the school directors, teachers, community elders and four students from the Khost school who came to Kabul for the day to discuss the vocational training program that American students are co-investing in in an effort to help them communicate with one another. This was a monumental meeting because Khost, seven hours away by car, is a very conservative community and heavily influenced by Taliban. Santwana, director of Partnership for the Education of Children in Afghanistan, said that it took five years to get the community elders on board with this. Baby steps. We discussed the importance of education as well as economic security for their children. Having this much contact with westerners is completely unprecedented but it turns out they loved it!

Following the meeting we asked the kids from Khost to record a video message for the kids in Cannon Falls middle and high school who are participating in the pilot project. Again, this level of contact is completely unprecedented. It was really cute and at first they were nervous. As they talked about their lives and what they appreciate about Afghan culture and society, everyone loosened up. It was so cool to see these neo-conservative elders laughing and smiling at how proud the kids were to share their culture. Look out world peace, here we come!

By the time that was over, it was late. We met Wasim at the hospital to visit baby Rahim and the other kids. That day he had brought in a little boy who was blind in one eye and had serious infections in both eyes. The doctors gave him some medicine to take over the next four days. If there isn’t improvement he will likely need surgery.

Wasim also brought in a 15-day-old baby and a three-year-old toddler who both suffered from severe pneumonia. The hospital wanted to admit the baby but the mother was unable to stay with him because she needed to get back to her children in the camp. Wasim will try to find someone else at the camp who can watch her kids because the baby really needs to be admitted to the hospital. I am sure Wasim will find a way.

Meanwhile, baby Rahim and the other patients are doing better every day, and I brought them some toys to cheer them up. My daughters always give me some of their toys to share with kids when I travel.

Children’s Culture Connection Partnership for the Education of Children in Afghanistan War Kids Relief (Donations can be made to this project through War Kids Relief. Please indicate HCMF in the PayPal memo.)

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 6:00 pm and is filed under NEED Magazine, Organizations, Photo Essays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.